Reconstruction
by Pipe Fox
Summary: Nightwing, Robin, deals with the loss of Starfire for the second time after she leaves through the wormhole. Angsty, a bit weirdy I might need a lobotomy now.


Reconstruction

Maybe it's wrong.

            He recalled tears in her eyes as she stepped through the wormhole, a more bittersweet parting than the last, when she had simply disappeared.  Silence assumed its place, then,

            "She's gone.  She's gone again.  She's gone again." Raven doubled over, "She's gone again, she's gone again…"

            "Man," Beast Boy, insensitivity overcoming his dispirited cast, "Not this again."

            "Shut up." said Cyborg, solemnly, touching over his metal chest, then over his head.  In a vain attempt, and with Starfire's secondary absence, he started optimistically, "Looks like the Titans are back together, eh?"

But at this point, Nightwing had already turned his back, and began to walk out of the museum.

            "Hey, Robin!  Where'ya goin'?!"

            "It's Nightwing." He snapped, did not answer the question and, in an instant, had broken through the glass roof and fled across the rooftops.  He arrived at his house –a home would require some warmth –and nestled in his chair, starring at the spot where Starfire had just been.

Maybe it's wrong.

            He folded his fingers, outwardly unfeeling, inwardly tumult and turmoil, question upon question, and unsaid word upon unsaid word.  Nightwing shivered, slowly moving his fingers and touching his mouth.  Then he slammed his fist down on the chair and sprang up, in a temper, throwing the device dangerously aside.

            "Wrong!" He raged aloud, "Wrong!  Nothing could be more wrong than what they did!  They took her away!"  He flew at the computer consol now, punching it mercilessly until it fizzled and crashed.

            "It's not right!" He screamed, surrounded by the hot sizzle of damaged electronics, "It's…it's not fair that Time could…could take her from me so easily."  He shivered again, haphazardly striking his mask with his arm.  Nightwing breathed deeply for what seemed like hours, but passed merely as minutes, attempting to regain his composure as he checked the computer damage.  Nothing too serious, he surmised, inhale, exhale.  

He straightened his chair and replaced himself, pausing, then entering a computer code.  A frazzled picture appeared on screen, a surveillance camera of his headquarters, of Starfire as she entered the room with him some hour ago, still so very, very young.

Mostly small talk, but Nightwing watched her intensely, feeling his throat well and tighten alternately.  

"You're exactly the same," he said, running his fingers across her face and through her hair.  Starfire said nothing, smiled shyly, blushed, her entity wavering over the screen.  Nightwing felt a blister of jealousy rush through him, as if this were not him of the recent past, but some other entity entirely.  He continued to watch as his past absorbed her presence, trying to squeeze twenty years into fifteen minutes.  

His mind slipped easily away, and he recalled the museum only of half-an-hour ago, before the wormhole, before everyone.

It's wrong, his mind had screamed for the quarter second before it happened; he kissed her across the lips, moved back and bit his own, telling her all he needed to say and watched her disappear again.

Nightwing shook terribly now, clenched his fist but remained in control.  Exuding calm, he left the video running as he called up a photograph of Starfire from the Teen Titans, elongating her frame, lengthening her hair, accentuating her but barely.  The computer filled in the rest, reshaping her youth into a graceful maturity.  He watched with eager and disheartened eyes, trembling somehow, swiping across his mask again.  It finished its work and produced, with a slow buzzing and halting, a disc.  It entranced Nightwing as he lifted it, and placed it in a holographer.

Starfire appeared there, blinking as a beautiful woman, smiling at him.  He shivered as surveyed her.

Maybe it's wrong.

            "Let's be together forever, Robin." He hadn't changed her voice; it remained the sweet, naïve tone he had heard so often in his youth and later, in his dreams.  He stared at her, mystified, approaching with caution.

            "Let's be together forever, Robin."  She blushed, smiled, swayed, "Let's be together forever, Robin." Blush, smile, sway.

He quivered tremendously now, entranced by his own creation.

            "Let's be together forever, Robin."  Nightwing stood very close, eye to eye and half-closed they were, reaching to touch her cheek…as his fingers feel right through the image.  He swallowed slowly, dropped his gaze and stepped away.

            "Let's be together forever, Robin."  He touched the holographer.  Starfire flickered and died.  Nightwing ejected the disc, moved to break it, stopped and put it gingerly in a case.

            "If only I could, Star." He kissed it before placing it on the console, "Maybe another night."  

Nightwing…Robin hesitated, reached for the Teen Titan communicator, took it and left.  The computer monitor flashed sleep warning signals, yet the video playback wound on.

            "Perhaps if we succeed, history will correct itself." Starfire stated, encouragingly.  Nightwing smiled sadly in return, but said nothing.

            "Perhaps Warp is wrong, and hope does exist."

            "Hope always exists, Star."  He took her fingers and looked into her eyes, "Hope always…"

Then the monitor slept.

I finished this exactly an hour after I saw the first episode of the new season, which would explain why this story is absolutely crap.  Still, I had to write it, it would have weighted my mind otherwise, and since my mind is a lightweight, my head would have been permanently wedged on the floor.  

Um…notes, at the very end of the episode, I think that Robin may have kissed Starfire and they cut it out.  His face close to hers and he kind of backed away…?  I'm probably just hallucinating.

About the ending…yeah, I'm…not all there.  Again.  I'm not much in a happy ending mood myself, so that might explain it.  Oh well, it's just me being me.  I'll shut up now.  Hearts to you, Artemis.


End file.
